I believe in a thing called love.

I believe in a thing called love and not because some "one hit wonder" band taught me to.  This year has been a crazy one.  Not only in my own personal life but in the media as well.  I feel like there is so much negativity around us.  TV, Social Media, the news.  It is so easy to focus on all the terrible and negative things.  So easy to lose sight of the one simple thing that keeps us all grounded and connected.  This is love.

This year I witnessed a marriage of 20+ years end.  Divorce is ugly.  It shook our family and tested all of us.  It shook my own marriage as I started to question what a truly happy marriage is like, if marriages can really last, and wondered if we were on the right path to have a successful and happy marriage.  How can couples stay happy together and "in-love" for 60+ years and others end in months?  While this may have been a divorce that struck closest to home, it is not the only one I have witnessed since being married only 3 years ago.  My husband and I have attended weddings of friends that are no longer married and have seen divorce up close and personal on both sides of our family.

Even while I have watched once happy marriages end, I continue to believe in love because I witness it first hand in my home everyday.  I can't NOT believe in it because I feel it in my heart.  I see it in our pictures and in the way we reminisce.  I feel it when he hugs and kisses me goodbye, or calls me at lunch to see how I am doing.  I can't worry about the future or what might be in store for our marriage.  All I can do is choose to believe in the LOVE that is right in front of my eyes. I can also continue to make sure that our marriage is our number one priority.  Even above our children because I want a marriage that lasts AFTER our children have left the house.

For those of you still searching for Mr. or Mrs. Right, know that I truly believe that love is everywhere and it will find you.  For those of you questioning your own love and marriage right now.  Are you going to chose to believe in it?   I believe unhappy or unloving marriages can be fixed and marriage has seasons of hard times.

To my sweet friend who was sexually abused by a man who didn't deserve her, know that I truly believe in love.  This world can be so cruel and I will never understand just how he ruined you.  But know that good men exist.  Know that LOVE above all else exists.  It is real and I choose to believe in it.

Click here to learn more about my friends story.